From November 16 to 19 2008, RNID's Biomedical Research Team went to Mannheim, Germany, to attend BIO Europe - one of the year's key conferences for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry.

Being a more intimate conference than its international version, we were able to take advantage of the partnering system, and participate in a number of beneficial one-one meetings. Our exhibition stand helped raise awareness of the vast commercial opportunities that exist in developing medical treatments for hearing loss/tinnitus. Our brightly coloured earplug giveaways were used to further prompt interest in the field of hearing protection.

The interest was strong, and also quite varied. We spoke to companies either already working on, or considering entering the field of: ototoxicity/otoprotection, age-related hearing loss, noise-induce hearing loss, tinnitus and regenerative medicine.

The companies we met with and delegates we spoke to expressed a keen interest in, and a real need for more formal consultancy services such as RNID brokering of partnerships between investors, VCs, pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies, and assisting in collaborations with leading academics.

RNID's show fact file:

The Biomedical Research team at RNID look forward to attending BIO2009 in Atlanta, Georgia.